


In the year of '39

by Big_Edies_Sun_Hat



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Humor, Pining, Romantic Angst, Wizard of Oz References, World War II, insufferable minor OC though I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:20:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27337807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Big_Edies_Sun_Hat/pseuds/Big_Edies_Sun_Hat
Summary: Written for the prompt "Queen," around the song "'39," which is maybe their best.An angel immediately grasps what ought to be done about the war; another finds it harder.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	In the year of '39

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by ['39](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/708349) by Queen. 



_1939_

_First week of September_

“ _We represent the Lullaby League,_

_The Lullaby League, the Lullaby League,_

_And in the name of the Lullaby League,_

_We wish to_ —”

“I do not approve of this performance.”

The woman in the lavender hat who sat in the center row of the cinema said this aloud, as if she had been alone there. She was not. Several heads whipped around; there was a general grumbling in the crowd.

The gentleman next to her cringed, not for the first time or the last. He had told her that if one had to speak in a cinema, it was traditional to whisper, but she had chosen to ignore that. It was not the first time she had chosen to ignore him.

“I do not think attending this drama is of any use,” said the woman in the lavender hat.

Like almost everything else she said, it was a flat announcement, inviting no argument. She stood, turned, and walked towards the aisle. Her departure was immediately followed by a chorus of _ouch!_ and _pardon_ you _, you cow_ , because she did not stop to ask anyone to let her by. This was not something that an angel ever had to do—not, at least, in her experience.

Aziraphale gathered his coat and hat, and followed after her.

“Please excuse us,” he whispered to the irritated moviegoers in the row as he eased past. “She’s foreign. Frightens easily. Terribly sorry.”

In the wideness of the world and the fullness of time, new undercover agents were occasionally required; and these were generally sent to Aziraphale for a few days so that they could grasp the basics of wearing human clothes, using human manners, and generally not driving anyone mad without meaning to.

They were company, of a sort. Some were better learners than others—more sympathetic, more interested—but, as he eventually came to find out, none cared to stay in the field a moment longer than they had to. Even so, it was nice to sit in the shop and speak openly with someone for a few days.

Well, _almost_ openly. It wasn’t the same as—

“Why would you attend such entertainments?”

The woman in the lavender hat was striding ahead of him on the sidewalk. Her voice was frustrated, but not without curiosity. She was certainly not someone who had ever given him the impression of being interested in the cinema. Aziraphale adjusted his answer to something she might understand.

“When they gather,” he said, “you can feel what they feel. You see what they see—not with eyes, you understand—but also _with_ eyes, of course—you take the measure of the crowd. The crowd is a, a kind of living thing. It’s not quite the same as a person, or a group of persons, although technically it is, and at the cinema, or at a theater, you can learn what it is that the crowd feels. And, of course, sense any demonic influences,” he added.

“Hmm.” She was satisfied by this, if not pleased. “It must be very tiresome.”

“It can be,” said Aziraphale. “But very necessary. Just as I was telling you that it is sometimes necessary to eat in restaurants and cafés, to get a sense of the local mood. And, again, any demonic influences in the area.”

“But there will not be any restaurants soon,” she said.

The woman in the lavender hat still strode slightly ahead of him, as if the two were a henpecked husband and wife in a newspaper cartoon. Across the street, Aziraphale caught a glimpse of a small café. It was dark, empty, except for an aproned woman who stood in the doorway with her arms folded, her face sallow.

“Well,” said Aziraphale softly. “Yes and no. In wartime …”

“I expect it is all different,” said the woman in the lavender hat, with some satisfaction. “Not so much foolishness. How do you plan to change your operation?”

What was her _name_? It escaped Aziraphale constantly. It ended with - _biel_ and began with an _A_ , and he always nearly called her _Amabel_ , which was certainly not her right name, or really anyone’s. So he simply addressed her as “madam,” which she did not seem to question. Although he could easily go and check his correspondence for her name, he had a perverse desire not to remember it, which grew the longer she stayed.

It was not that she was a bad guest. Celestial beings have no reason to wreck the kitchen or use all the towels.[1] He could even have forgotten that she was there; when he was not instructing her, she read books from the shelf, one after another, sitting as straight as a saint. But the books she read were atlases and almanacs, and they did not improve her disposition in the slightest.

She disapproved of him. She disliked eating and drinking, and told him at length what she found disgusting about the operation of chewing. She was baffled by music with lyrics or percussion. She disbelieved everything he told her until he had argued her around to it. She was, in short, an angel, and she was everything he ought to be.

“Change the operation? Well, there’s the blackout curtains, which was a considerable expense, and I thought I might carry—”

“Not your cover. Your _operation_. Your methods of proceeding among the people.”

Aziraphale looked skyward. The sun was shining in a blue autumn sky, which did not cheer him. Good weather for London was good weather for the Luftwaffe.

“We will adapt,” he said finally. Talk about “adapting” rarely failed him in the Front Office. “We will observe the conditions on the ground and assimilate as required. We will give aid and comfort to the men and women on the home front.”

“Why?”

“ _Why_?”

Aziraphale stared ahead, grasping for an answer. The woman in the lavender hat nearly stumbled on a flagstone’s edge; then the sidewalk flattened itself slightly to accommodate her.

“Was I mistaken?” she said. Her confusion was genuine. “We are only assigned to observe and report for the duration. Not give aid. Have your orders changed? Mine haven’t.”

“Look, helping people is—” He stopped, then started over. “It is an _adaptation_. It is necessary. Without plays, without restaurants, where do we find the crowds? We find them where they are suffering, and when we are there, we can offer blessings and—”

“Oh!” There was a kind of delight in her voice, as if she had solved a puzzle. “Of course! Demonic influence is bound to be at the root of it. I should have seen!”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, and kept walking.

So many years away. Why had it been so long since Crowley … no. Why had it _seemed_ so long? That was the better question. It had been longer before; after the reign of King Hor-aha of Tjenu, the two of them hadn’t seen each other for one hundred and fifty years. And they’d been quarreling then, too, over the human sacrifices in the mastabas. How had _those_ years gone by so fast?

The answer was simple; he came back to it over and over. _People_ were fast, now. Back in the first of days, you could only tell the generations had gone by because the fluting on the pottery had changed. Of course there were new things, new ways, but never too many at a time. And then, just about one hundred years ago, the tempo had picked up, somewhere in the mind of man.

Mills had gone up by the rivers, and telegraph lines snaked around the world, and soon enough there were telephones and electric lights and before you could say _ars gratia artis_ , the world was bright and loud and everywhere at once. Everyone had picked up on the same clothing, the same news, the same slang.

Time was not what it was. Which would be all right, _more_ than all right, if only—

“Do remind me,” Aziraphale said, as lightly as possible. “When do you have to leave?”

“Tomorrow morning!”

The woman in the lavender hat sounded slightly shocked, as if he had forgotten who she was at all.

“Forgive me,” he said. “The pressures of business, you understand. In the field, one finds one has to remember so many more things.”

“I suppose so,” she said. Then, with the quickness of a bird, she pointed across the aging half-macadamed street to an office at the far corner. “Look!”

Men had assembled there in a rough queue, and they were a rough assembly, too: some young and sharply dressed, others of indetermine age in sooty clothes, others old enough to be their fathers. They lingered outside of the office door, some rocking on their heels, some fiddling with their hats. In a music shop two doors down, someone had put on a gramophone, perhaps in an attempt to entertain the men, but as they watched, it stuck, repeating: _oh my love / -h my love / -h my love_ —

“There’s a crowd,” said the woman in the lavender hat. She tasted the air. “A little suffering. A little anger. Mostly nervous. What is it for?”

She was remarkably good at sensing human emotions for someone who had no use for them whatsoever. Here, she was right. As they drew closer, a poster

“Volunteers,” he said quietly. “For the army. For the war.”

She nodded with sharp approval, and said no more. To her, what else was there to be said? But Aziraphale had seen wars here below; he had seen what happened when there was only one body to a life. And when he saw men crowding for it, asking to go to war, his heart fell, every century, every decade, every time.

As the two of them passed by, the skipping record was cut short at _my love_ and replaced by another: “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” It was the worst war song he had ever heard, except, perhaps, for every other song he had heard in wartime.

In the weak young trees at the sidewalk, the first red leaves crackled in a chill bright breeze. The sound made him want very badly to go away from her and to sit in the park by himself, and there were no words in the world that would tell her why.

He was aware that there _was_ a word for a man who lingered in a park looking for other men in particular. There were a number of words, in fact, and some of them were statutory. Sometimes, near sunset, a policeman would give him a hard look; then Aziraphale would quietly shut his book and move on. Of course, that policeman would immediately forget what he had been thinking about and stand blinking in mild confusion until Aziraphale was gone, but that was not the point. The point was, well, _standards_. Not letting the side down.

Was that what he had done? Was he letting the side down? Aziraphale had been wondering about that since the first of days, in one way or another; but when wartime came, he wondered more and harder. He used to have someone to tell him when he ought to wonder about what he was doing.

Well—what would _he_ do?

The next morning, she appeared to him—every time she entered a room, she _appeared_ to people; it was a talent that would serve her well—at the breakfast table, and stared down at his cup of tea. She always looked faintly disgusted at the sight of food, but today that look was tempered with a new respect.

“I am afraid we have to part, madam,” he said, a little more cheerfully than he meant to, as he stood to greet her.

She grasped his hand and gave it a firm shake. Her silver eyes met his.

“I have to congratulate you,” she said, unsmiling.

“Oh,” he said, blinking, “thank you, but what—”

“You have shown me what it takes to do this work. You have survived these people,” she said, and dropped his hand. “You thrive among them. You live as one of them. You have even shed your dignity to do it. It is something I could never have achieved. Thank you.”

“Ah,” he said; then he gave a firm nod, and a firmer goodbye, and she was gone.

What would Crowley do? Well, he would not take that sitting down. He would not linger in a park, pitying himself. He would go to war. He _was_ going to war, somewhere, it was certain, on the side of chaos and fear; he was not _observing_. Neither should an angel. Neither would Aziraphale. The years were behind, and the war was ahead.

He turned abruptly, then went to tear aside the blackout curtains: the morning, again, was clear.

[1] Unless they were attempting to learn how to make choux pastry, which only one had ever tried.


End file.
